Croquembouche recipe + raspberry coulis (Christmas edition)

Hi Guys! In this video I show you how to make an amazing French dessert called a Croquembouche. A Croquembouche is made from profiteroles filled with vanilla pastry cream, glued together with caramelised sugar and stacked to form a cone shaped tower.

Method: 1. To make the vanilla pastry cream, whisk together the egg yolks and caster sugar until light yellow in colour and fluffy in texture. Add in the flour and whisk together until combined.

2. Put the milk into a pot and heat on a low heat. Cut the vanilla pod down the centre and scrape out all the seeds. Throw the seeds and pod into the pot of milk and allow to heat just below boiling point. Once the milk is just below boiling point, remove the pods.

3. Temper the sugar and egg mixture by adding in 1 ladle of the warm milk and then mix. Add in the rest of the milk and whisk to combine. Add this mixture back into the pot and heat on a low temperature. This will prevent your mixture from turning into scrambled eggs. Continue to whisk your mixture over a low temperature until your pastry cream has thickened. Transfer into a bowl and then cover the top with cling film to prevent a skin from forming. The cling film must touch the top of the pastry cream. Set aside to cool.

4. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees celsius.

5. To make your choux buns, place your milk, water, brown sugar, salt and butter into a pot. Heat the pot over a gentle heat until the butter has melted. Then add in the flour and mix with a wooden spoon. Keep mixing until the mixture comes together to form a smooth dough. Remove from the heat.

6. Add in one egg at a time, making sure the egg is pre-beaten before adding in. Mix until the egg is thoroughly absorbed before adding the next egg. The final result should be a smooth, silky batter.

7. Pipe your choux buns onto a lined baking sheet, making sure to leave a 2cm gap between each bun as they will expand. If your buns have little peaks, dip your finger into some water and then flatten the peaks.

8. Cook the little buns for 30 minutes in the centre of the oven then place the tray on a lower shelf and cook for a further 10 minutes to allow the buns to dry out. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

9. Fill your piping bag with the pastry cream and fill the choux buns, being careful not to over fill them otherwise they might explode.

10. To make your caramel, heat the sugar and water on a medium heat until golden brown in colour then remove from the heat. Be VERY CAREFUL not to burn yourself, it is insanely hot! Also keep a close eye as the caramel starts turning brown as it can burn very quickly and you will have to start over.

11. Assemble your profiteroles around your cone using the caramel as your glue. If your caramel hardens while you’re still busy, gently heat it on the stove. I made my cone out of cardboard and shaped it into the shape I found best which is quite tall and narrow.

12. Decorate the Croquembouche with excess caramelised sugar and drape it over the top then dust the top with icing sugar.

What do you do when the dough comes out watery. I have looked at numbers of videos and did it step by step and the dough is still not coming out right, As soon as I put in the eggs it start to turn into a soup.

That was great. We just heard of chokethebush tonight while watching Master Chef Jr and decided we need to make one. I watched 3 other croaknfoos videos before hitting yours. I like yours the best (even though we’ll need to translate your measurements to American’s). You are a joy and we will probably be watching 7 or 8 more times while we make our first tower of puffers! Thank you for this video. Subscribed!

I was just thinking of making croquembouche for Christmas just to make things a little different in our Filipino home. I’ve never made croquembouche before, but have made choux a la creme tons of times. I just love making these by hand! Thank you for this tutorial!

Hi Isabella! Thank you for watching 🙂 I am from South Africa. That sounds interesting! Please let me know how that works for you, I am always open to new ideas. And if that means you won’t have to burn yourself, great! I also have a facebook page (Little Jozi) and Instagram page (@littlejozi). Tag me so I can see how it looks! x

Thank you for the video. I really like your accent. Which country are you from? You know, I have been thinking using chopsticks to dip and arrange the Choux around the cone. I am gonna try to make it this week. I hope using chopsticks will work 🙂